44. Friday club has a new system!

At Friday club my husband implemented a pegboard system as lately we have had far too many people and not enough games. He has played via this system many times so knows it well, but it was completely new to me. He made the pegboard himself, the clever cookie!

The top row shows the four courts at the Friday club and the pegs on those courts represent who is playing a game. When people come off a game, their pegs are moved to the row below and the winner chooses who they would like to play with next.

In complete honestly, I didn’t quite understand the system at the time, later my husband explained it to me and it made much more sense! I must say though, that we did get to play all night and I got to play far more games than usual so I do think it is a good thing!

Side note, but my peg is a really boring one, I would like to decorate it to reflect my personality! It would also make it easier to find and move around! I decorated some of the other pegs for the other players quite some time ago, but I don’t think they were ever used. This was before I started playing badminton. Funny how life turns out eh?! Now here I am, needing a peg of my own!

At one point at the beginning of the evening, I was walking on to a court to play when a more advanced player asked me to pick the fourth player for my game. Three of us were walking on and as he had put me on the spot, I picked him! I don’t know why I did this because he only likes to play good games! I had just seen him battle it out with my husband and two other good players. This game would totally suck for him! He smiled though and said ‘great, I just want to keep playing!’ So…it looks like he didn’t mind playing with me and that he would rather play than hang around waiting.

The better players having a good game….

Sometimes when I play alongside a really strong player, I freak out and play really rubbish. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. During the game though, I forgot that he was a much better player and just got on with it. We defended side by side really well I must say. The game turned out to be a really fast and exciting one. He returned some really unexpected shots, he was really nifty on the court. I was doing surprisingly well too! He grinned at me during the game and said ‘this game is turning out much better than my last one!’ I couldn’t believe it. He was enjoying this game more than the really serious one with the better players? I must admit we were having some awesome rallies, but surely they were nothing compared to what he is used to!

I went on to really enjoy my night and made a friend. She had played once before, a few months ago and was telling me how much progress she thought I had made in that time. She thought the improvement was very noticeable. I guess she had played with me when I was just learning to hit the shuttlecock back. She kept choosing me to play with her and even refused mixed doubles at one point, wanting to partner with me against the men! We lost that game, but we did play very well and the score was close!

Towards the end of the evening, the advanced player I played alongside at the beginning of the session picked me for a game. He actually picked me. I was shocked, I still am. This meant he wasn’t just humouring me earlier, he meant it. He enjoyed playing with me! I was doing big karate chops and wooping in my head at this point! Never mind the fact that we didn’t get to play together though as someone else ran on to the court unknowingly and took his place! You can’t really control what happens on a court even with a peg board system!